When attempting to raise funds or secure financial backing for projects such as motion pictures, it typically is desirable to attach at least one actor, producer, or other person or entity to the project that will increase the likelihood of investment in the project. For example, a film project progresses through multiple stages before the film is completed and distributed to audiences. Each stage of the project, from planning to completion, requires some level of funding. In an initial development stage, a filmmaker or other person involved in the project pitches the film project to potential investors to obtain funding necessary to perform various tasks, such as to write a screenplay and eventually produce and distribute the film.
When deciding whether to fund the project, investors consider information such as what is often referred to as the “bankability” of people or entities attached to the project, such as the top-billed actors, the director, the producer, and/or the screenwriter. The bankability of an actor can include, for example, an estimated or predicted ability of that actor to raise funding for a project simply by having that actor's name attached to the project, typically determined subjectively by persons in the industry. Accordingly, filmmakers attempt to identify professionals having high bankability and attach those professionals to the film project.
Because bankability is such an important factor in obtaining financing for film projects, much effort is spent in the film industry determining the bankability of actors, directors, producers, writers, and other professionals. Nevertheless, accurately and consistently determining professionals' bankability can be difficult. As mentioned above, bankability determinations are typically based, at least in part, on subjective data, which leads to inconsistent results that may not accurately reflect professionals' true bankability. In addition, bankability determinations are often made without distinguishing between older data and more recent data. That is, a professional's success on older projects is given the same weight as the professional's success on newer projects, even though recent success may be more indicative of a professional's current bankability. This failure to distinguish between older success and recent success favors a tenured professional with a long history of experience over a less-tenured professional, even if the less-tenured professional has had more success in recent years.
Same numbers are used throughout the disclosure and figures to reference like components and features, but such repetition of number is for purposes of simplicity of explanation and understanding, and should not be viewed as a limitation on the various embodiments.